It's Tuesday, It Must Be Kyoto

Some much belated pictures from my family's visit:

Hakone - a popular hotsprings resort outside of Tokyo. The air was crisp, the winds lively. The closest I've been to pure paradise was sitting in a steaming hot bath outdoors - the extreme warmth underneath and extreme cold on top joined forces, melting away the tension stored in my joints and muscles. There's also a big mountain near there. Perhaps you've heard of it - Fuji.






Hiroshima - I was a bit nervous about Hiroshima. It felt wrong initially, hopping on a street car, camera in hand, going to the spot where my country cause untold amounts of human suffering, so much so that the city's name alone is a synonym for the deadliest of human ingenuities. The A-Bomb dome, a building whose frame survived despite being a few hundred meters below the site of the explosion, was, for locals, just another train stop. If my time there (just 24 hours) proved to me anything at all, I suppose it was that even the remnants of the atomic bomb can become just another tourist attraction with the passing of time.






Kyoto - This was a bit of a homecoming for me. Kyoto is the city where I spent my first weeks in Japan in 2005, so most of the sights reminded me of the time when I became determined to spend my year abroad here. It was as pretty as I remember it to be. Temples, shrines, a quiet walk along the Philosopher's Path, pensive amid a light drizzle.








Kamakura - A former Buddhist stronghold (the atmosphere certainly reinforces it) in 10th century Japan, I decided, visiting with the family, that if I were to move to Japan permanently (very unlikely; just a hypothetical), Kamakura would be where I would like to base myself. Small yet varied; quiet but active; humble without cause.

Coming of Age (Again)

The national holidays of Japan consist of an odd mix of nationalist (the Emperor’s birthday), religious (Buddha’s birthday), pseudo-pagan (the autumn and spring equinoxes) and kind of cute (Respect for the Elderly Day, popularly known as Old Folks’ Day) observances. Save for New Year’s, I’ve yet to really feel a part in the observance of these holidays (I’m not elderly, or the Emperor, or Buddha), but last Monday’s holiday changed all of that.

The second Monday in January is Coming-of-Age day, where everyone who turned 20 during the preceding year gathers in public spaces and enjoys a ceremony marking their entrance into adulthood. This was very exciting news, because I am 20, and by all accounts there was to be a ceremony at the local city hall for all the 20-year olds in the city. I delicately asked the student affairs director at the university about it, and she managed to push a few buttons and get me an invitation.

Of course, the problem here is that I’ve already had a coming-of-age ceremony – my Bar Mitzvah. Whether or not this disqualified me from coming of age a second time (I didn’t tell anybody, just to be safe), it struck me as odd that two cultures ended up seven years apart in their estimation of when a person becomes an adult, what with a pool of only 20 years to choose from in the first place. Of course, none of this could stop me from donning a shirt and tie for the first time in months, hopping on the bike and riding to my Japanese Bar Mitzvah.

A few points really distinguished this ceremony from my Bar Mitzvah nearly eight years ago. To begin with, in lieu of the synagogue I grew up in, filled with family members and close friends, mostly Jewish, my Japanese coming-of-age took place in an enormous hall filled with about 600 Japanese twenty-year olds and one non-Japanese person (me). Instead of shirts, ties and skirts, the majority crowd was in kimonos and other traditional dress, although a fair number of the males were dressed in suits and had that pan-cultural “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be wearing this” look on their faces.

The only similarity I could really think of was that at both ceremonies I was constantly being congratulated by old people whom I’d never met before.

As I found a seat, the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, revealing two lines of five seats filled with important people whose exact titles escape me. A few of these people went up to the podium, bowed down to their ankles, and then bowed to each row of people seated on the stage, who bowed from their seats in unison, like a crew team slowly moving forward against a current. They all praised Mitaka (the section of Tokyo I live in), wished everyone a kokoro kara omedetou gozaimasu (heartfelt congratulations) implored us (not me, I deduced) to vote, and passed the microphone to the next speaker. As is usually the case at ceremonies in Japan, the crowd was fairly talkative throughout.

Upon the conclusion of these welcome speeches, two males, probably local high school or college students (they received numerous “woo!”s from the crowd), informed us that we were about to view a performance (the program read “Performance”), so would we please all stop talking and be respectful. The white noise of scattered chatter slowly dissipated into a whisper, and once again the lights dimmed.

As soon as the silence had become whole, a thick baseline erupted from the speakers hanging on either side of the stage, and four youths dressed in matching black tracksuits galloped on stage and began a very specifically choreographed hip-hop dance routine to music containing the only English heard that day (variations on “Let’s dance,” and other passages directed at a girl with whom the singer would prefer to be physically closer). There was much gesticulation and gyration in the direction of the audience, and just to make sure nothing had been lost in translation, I double-checked with the girl sitting next to me (wearing a kimono and hairdo which had taken 3 ½ hours to put together, so she said) that there was indeed no relevant connection between this performance and the rest of the ceremony. After their performance was over, and the group stood in a line breathing heavily and bowing, their leader forwarded us a very formal congratulation from the group and exited stage right.

At about this time my neighbor became interested in my presence (she saw that I had a cell phone), and we exchanged the traditional greetings between a Japanese person and a foreigner (Your Japanese is really good! – No, it’s not – It really is! – It’s really not [when someone compliments you, its considered a little boastful to say “thank you, so you’re supposed to brush away the compliment]), and she told me that she likes Americans and Europeans because they’re tall and have blue eyes (oh, well), and did I know her friend who goes to my school (no). Her friends, sitting behind us, started making fun of her because she was talking to the foreigner. I turned around and introduced myself in Japanese, and they stopped making fun.

In the middle of our fourth or fifth exchange of “Your Japanese Is Really Good – No It’s Not,” the lights dimmed again, this time for a slideshow that went through each year of the attendees lives (1987-2007), showing a one or two pictures that detailed the big events of that particular year, set to cheery pop music. Here’s a sampling:

1995: the Kobe earthquake (6500 killed, $200 billion in damage, a major city uprooted by mother nature); Tokyo Subway Gas Attacks (an act of terror in the public transportation system of the largest city in the world)

1998: Ichiro breaks the Japanese League hits record

2001: World Trade Center attacks

2003: Hideki Matsui comes to play for the Yankees

2007: Billy Blanks*


*(Billy Blanks [of Tae-Bo fame] is HUGE in Japan. Walk into most department stores and you hear his videos being shown in the background. I really really really wish I were making this up. But I’m not.)

I haven’t the data to back this up, but I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that 9/11, Ichiro and Billy Blanks have appeared in the same presentation. Again, my neighbor was unfazed. I was too confused to request an explanation.

To conclude the ceremony, we stood sang Tabidachi no hi ni (On the Day Your Journey Begins), which is to Japanese graduation-type ceremonies what “I Believe I Can Fly” and that “Time of Your Life” song are to American graduation-type ceremonies. The lyrics were printed on the ceremony program, so I tried to sing along a little bit (You read Japanese so well! – No I don’t), and though I lost the tune a few times, I was able to follow.

There, singing together with about 600 complete strangers a song whose meaning I could only feel through the melody, I felt an unusual sense of belonging. Most of the time, I feel adrift in Tokyo – I don’t belong to the Japanese, and the foreign community is, in general, a scattered one. But standing in that hall, lending a voice – nationality indistinguishable - to the group, I felt, however fleetingly, that I was no longer just a visitor; after all the months of viewing their culture from the outside, I had found this hidden avenue to the inside, and, wrapped in the evanescence of melody, nobody seemed to mind letting me in. I wasn’t a foreigner; I felt I was a natural part of the whole.

The feeling lasted just a brief few moments, but that small glimpse of being just one of the crowd was clear enough to convince me that I had arrived at some sort of destination. By no means did I feel like had just begun or finally completed a journey, but somewhere in between confusion and understanding, singing words that I could only vaguely define with people I would never meet again, I came of age in a way that had nothing to do with getting older.

O-matase shimaimashita

(First, a note on the subject of the post. At any store in Japan, if you are kept waiting for any period of time longer than nothing, before paying for or receiving something you ordered, the clerk or applicable body will say a heartfelt [or sometimes not so heartfelt] o-mataseshimaimashita, which is an untranslatably polite phrase that means, sort of, “I have shamelessly and undeservedly made you wait.” In Japan, a country with, in general, very little sense of irony, this phrase is said at points even when it’s obvious that a) there was no choice but to make someone wait, or b) the time spent waiting was approximately 1.37 seconds. So, because I feel that it’s been far too long since I’ve written, I wanted to say to all of you o-mataseshimaimashita; it won’t happen again.

In an unrelated note, whenever I’m with a Japanese friend and I have to tie my shoe or run back inside to get something, I come back and say to them o-mataseshimaimashita. They are never terribly amused by it, but I think it’s really funny every time. Okay, onto the actual post.)


Besides the obvious, I think that a lot can be learned from a language textbook. Gauging the category of vocabulary learned early on, the examples of discussion and role-play situations, a student can learn not only some new words but, in general, what cultural attitudes and experiences go along with speaking this new language. For example, in the Hebrew textbook I used, the situations given for conversation practice usually included arguing over prices at the local market, telling someone they were crazy, or lamenting the situation of the world-at-large in a uniquely enchanting Israeli way.

The authors of that textbook were correct (in my opinion) that the situations often encountered in Israel, where one will probably end up speaking Hebrew, usually revolve around arguing and passionate displays of emotion and opinion. It makes sense – prepare the students for the real-world situations they’re most likely to experience as speakers of the language.

So I think it’s safe to conclude that the context in which a language is taught provides a lot of implicit information about the culture.

Consider, then, the Japanese language textbook. Almost invariably, the situations described in Japanese textbooks involve a confused foreigner trying to figure out Japanese culture. Almost never are a Japanese and an American talking like normal friends, and almost invisible is the foreign student with a deeper understanding of Japanese culture.

For example, two weeks of class based on an essay written by a Japanese person bemoaning the lack of proper thanks given by an American he took care of. The American thanked him once and not again; the author could not understand how someone could stop after just one thank you. Roles for discussion are often given that include an average Japanese explaining a particular custom to a baffled foreigner, and popular essay topics include how Japan is different from home, what shocked one about Japan upon first arriving, and the difficulties of learning the language.

I know that much of this is out of consideration and politeness, and they certainly don’t have to go out of their way to help foreigners out, but if we compare the Hebrew and Japanese textbook models, it would be hard not to conclude that the expected situation for a student of Japanese in Japan is utter confusion. It certainly seems, based on all of this and my own personal experience, that I’m expected to not have any idea what’s going on around me.

It often feels like this kind of attitude is designed to keep reminding me that I’m an outsider, though I simply need to walk outside for that reminder anyway. The truth is that not much shocked me when I first arrived here – I had been to Japan before, taken a class on Japanese history and read enough Japanese literature to have at least a vague grasp on its collective unconscious. Does this make me an expert? Of course not, but with the world shrinking every moment, few people come to Tokyo without some sort of knowledge of Japan, its history, and its customs.

Yet the image of the confused foreigner continues to be promulgated. This isn’t to say I understand what’s going on – what I don’t get could fill multiple encyclopedia sets – but nearly four months into my time here, I’m ready to shed the image.

In fact, I may have to. This week I’m playing host for the first time – at first to a Japanese friend from Kyoto (I will show him around Tokyo, in a strange twist of roles), and then to my parents and youngest brother. With the job as host comes a certain feeling of ownership of one’s surroundings, and I’m enjoying it even before my visitors come. In the face of the expectation of being overwhelmed, I will show people around, tell them which trains to take, walk to new places without a map, serve as translator, and try to share my love for this incredible city.

The thought has come to me more than once that perhaps it is the locals who are overwhelmed by my presence, and that the confusion they expect me to have is in part their confusion as to where I fit in their society. Many times I feel that, when I go to a place where foreigners aren’t expected to go, the locals don’t know what to do with me. They certainly seemed as baffled, if not more so, than the foreign characters in my textbook.

The other day I went to buy a pillow and sheets for my guest coming on Friday. Outside the store, an older man saw me and said, proudly flaunting his English ability, “Shopping visit?” I answered in Japanese and we had a nice little conversation about where I lived, what I was doing in Tokyo, and other things like that. As we were about to part, he said, smiling and grandfatherly, “Be careful!”*

“But Japan is really safe, isn’t it?” I answered jokingly.

Turning away from me, he mounted his bike. “Be careful,” he said quietly in English, as if to himself.




*I feel I must clarify. The phrase he used is "ki o tsukete," which is kind of a cross between "take care" and "be careful," but I think it can be translated either way. I hope, anyway.